


i have this dream you’re doing cool shit

by meganseverafter



Series: in the end, all our stories are folklore [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meganseverafter/pseuds/meganseverafter
Summary: “Come find me, my Doctor. I’m just around your corner.” She tells him as she walks out the door and activates the correct sequence on her vortex manipulator, though she hasn’t the faintest what that corner may be.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, The Doctor/River Song
Series: in the end, all our stories are folklore [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852807
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	i have this dream you’re doing cool shit

Sometimes, she thinks about the Doctor. Wonders what he’s doing, what adventures he’s having and people he’s with. What might have happened and the life they could’ve led had he not left her on that beach with his copy. Oh she loves John, don’t get her wrong. She loves him for all he is, his similarities and differences from the Doctor. But sometimes she wonders what she might be doing if she was still with the Time Lord. 

*******************************************

She wonders more the more time goes on. Pete’s hair is thinning even more and her mother found a gray hair on Rose’s wedding day and John’s got a new laugh line when he smiles as she walks down the isle, but she still looks the same as the day he got the face he wears now for the first time. 

*******************************************

Tony’s seven when his teacher mistakes Rose for someone fresh out of secondary, asking her what uni she plans on attending. The Tylers decide then that they ought to look into things a little more than they had. 

*******************************************

She’s not aging. At least not a discernible rate. John says the time vortex must’ve had more of an effect than he’d ever thought and she finally makes him explain just what exactly happened on the Gamestation. She can’t say she regrets it. She never was good at leaving well enough alone. 

*******************************************

Her mum goes first, from an old age that Rose honestly wasn’t sure she’d get to witness all those years ago, be it from her own jeopardy-friendly actions or the Doctor’s poor driving. Pete goes shortly after, not equipped to live without her again after so many happy years together. 

Tony’s publicly taken over Torchwood by then and Rose has a new identity after the farce of the hidden Vitex Heiress mysteriously died ten years after her wedding. She went ginger, changed her style, and started going by Andrea, working for some obscure section of Torchwood with only the most trusted team. Andrea “died” during hostage negotiations that supposedly went sour. 

Suzette, the one with silky black hair is the one to say goodbye to her parents forever. The black suits the era as it’s only seven years later that John is diagnosed with cancer. It’s then that he reveals he’s found a way to get the old dimension canon working and it’s enough to send her home. On her tenth trip, she manages to confirm she’s in the right place but she still goes back, refusing to leave John to die on his own. She told him forever, and she meant it. 

The sun’s shining through the window as he grasps her hand the next afternoon, his energy long since drained as the cancer spreads. “We were something, don’t you think so?” 

“The stuff of legend.” She assures him, feeling his pulse weaken as tears slip past the strong exterior she’s trying to maintain for him. 

It’s a sunny day when John Smith-Tyler dies, but it’s appropriately gloomy when Rose Tyler spreads his ashes on a beach in Norway, her younger brother looking like her grandfather by her side. 

Suzette “dies” due to equipment malfunction two days later while Jane Smith is born in another universe, in a square in Cardiff. 

*******************************************

Jack’s a godsend in helping her get on her feet while she grieves. She spends the first week nearly catatonic in his flat before she finally gets up. She goes to the pharmacy down the street and comes back with truly awful box bleach and purple hair dye. It can only go terribly, but it leads to the first smile he’s gotten from her since she ran into his arms that first day. Besides, what’s a year of irreparably damaged hair to someone that’s next to immortal? 

*******************************************

They finally reach a point where it’s time to move on from 21st century Earth, their lack of aging getting a touch too noticeable. And they can’t quite bear remaining with Torchwood when their team dies anyway. Jack steals a second vortex manipulator from a Time Agent he never much liked anyway, programming it to take him and Rose to the same New Earth colony to start again, hopefully making a difference there. He doesn’t bring up finding the Doctor and for that, she’s infinitely grateful. 

*******************************************

Another fifty years go by, and she’s still not ready to look for him. 

*******************************************

People out of time and yet inexplicably fixed in it as they are, they don’t forget the Doctor, though they can feel the universe trying to adapt to their presence despite his direct influence on their current existence. They can’t even begin to start trying to figure out what’s going on before the feeling settles and they know the Doctor has been returned. But they don’t even know where to look to start asking questions. 

*******************************************

They hear the broadcast just as everyone else does. There’s something in their bones that says it’s trouble, so they’re among the ships just waiting outside Trenzalore’s atmosphere.

_Doctor Who?_

And isn’t that just the question?

*******************************************

They do what they can from space but in the end, it’s not enough. Until there’s word from the Dalek fleet that he’s regenerating. Something the Daleks were under the impression he had run out of chances with. They don’t know what to make of that, but the relief they feel as ships run away is palpable. They go for chips in London to celebrate. 

*******************************************

She’s going by Rose again but she’s stopped dying her hair when she meets River Song. Neither are sure who’s more surprised to meet the other. Both married to the Doctor and yet neither truly have him. River tells her that she knows her story’s coming to an end, her encounters are dwindling. Only asks that she gives him a moment to grieve her before Rose picks back up with him. Rose promises she’ll give him at least that if she can manage it. 

It’s a weak promise, but both know how hard it’ll be to manage the timing when he doesn’t even know Rose is on this side of the wall and she can’t see timelines. 

*******************************************

She didn’t mean to end up there. A little typo in the code and there she was, outside the rec center, boasting Jackie and Rose Tyler’s memorial service. She never thought she’d be one to want to attend her own funeral, never understood the appeal of seeing people cry over you. But that was the opinion of a girl two hundred some years younger than her and she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d recognize the people in attendance. 

_He’s_ there. The Doctor. A face she hasn’t seen in it’s prime in nearly two hundred years, well and properly mourning her. She never properly appreciated just how _domestic_ this body had become in comparison to the first she’d known. In hindsight, it was a blessing next to no one had been introduced to that Doctor, else it would’ve been a hell of a time to explain the regeneration. But everyone on the Estates adored this man. It breaks Rose’s heart to realize this is probably the last time he’ll let himself see most, if not all, of these people.

The man who never says goodbye, saying goodbye to an entire community because he can’t bear to have them wonder about her again. 

She’s surprised that she can recall most of these people, even if it’s only slight recognition. All but one, an older man keeping to the outskirts and avoiding everyone. The only person he truly looks at is the Doctor, but she sees his face when he can’t quite keep her photo out of his line of sight. 

Devastation for only the briefest flicker. But it’s enough. Between that and his frankly ridiculous combination of an outfit, especially for his age, it can only be one person. 

It’s too soon, she’s not ready. And she has no idea what point he’s at, other than that it’s after her. She made River a promise after all. But she can’t help herself, with him so close and so sad. He deserves to at least have _hope_. After all, doesn’t the saying go “if you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow”?

“Come find me, my Doctor. I’m just around your corner.” She tells him as she walks out the door and activates the correct sequence on her vortex manipulator, though she hasn’t the faintest what that corner may be.


End file.
